Chris Anderson (born 1957) is the curator of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), which hosts conferences in North America and Europe each year and an open-access website where TED talks can be viewed by the public. Previously he founded Future Publishing.

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Anderson was born in Pakistan, one of three children.[1] His parents were medical missionaries, and he spent most of his early life in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. He studied at a boarding school in the Himalayan mountains of India, Woodstock School, before moving to a boarding school in Bath, UK. At Oxford University, he studied physics, then changed to politics, philosophy and economics, to eventually graduate with a degree in philosophy in 1978.[1][2]

Anderson began a career in journalism, working on local newspapers, then producing a world news service in the Seychelles, and later working as an editor first on Personal Computer Games, then on Zzap!64, both early computer magazines.[1]

In 1985, he launched a publishing company devoted initially to hobbyist computer magazines, Future Publishing (based in Somerton and then Bath, UK), which rapidly grew, expanding into other areas, such as cycling, music, video games, technology, and design, going public in 1999.

In 2001, Anderson left Future after a collapse in its profits. He paid the UK media company £4m to acquire, through his non-profit foundation, the TED which had been bought by Future from its founder for more than double this in 2000. [4] Under his stewardship, the mission of TED shifted to "ideas worth spreading".[1] As of February 2014, 1,658 talks are available free online.[5] By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million,[6] and on Tuesday, November 13, 2012, TED Talks had been watched one billion times worldwide, reflecting a still growing global audience.[7] He also oversaw introduction of the TED Prize, the TED Fellows Program, the TED open translation program, TED-Ed and the TEDx program, allowing hundreds of independently organized TED-like events to be held around the world. Anderson spoke about the power of visual media at TED Global 2010 and its central role in the future of internet-based learning.

He is the father of three daughters: Zoe, Elizabeth and Anna. The eldest, Zoe, died in 2010 aged 24 from carbon monoxide poisoning.[8] Since 2008, he has been married to Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen, an organization that pioneered social impact investing.